Mass Customization in its Purest Form

The task was as clear as it was ambitious: 4250 customized covers for the first issue of Graphische Revue 2025. How did it work? With the help of randomly generated graphics and mass customization, we gave birth to thousands of ‘dog and cat’ alternatives.

Mass customization describes an approach that combines the advantages of mass production with the individual wishes of consumers. It combines the speed, efficiency and cost optimization of uniform production with the desired and sometimes necessary uniqueness. What was previously reserved for large companies is now within the reach of the entire market and allows brands to dream of a great future. However, it is only through technological innovations such as the HP SmartStream Designer that this milestone becomes practicable. Ultimately, the know-how behind the design forms the bridge to the customized cover.
 
Concept is King
For designers, mass customization means a complete shift in paradigms: creative freedom breaks all boundaries and a design is no longer a static object, but becomes a flexible system. Every parameter within mass customization requires the design team to establish rules for its use, which means that the hypothetical work could expand almost infinitely. This requires a new mentality that integrates chance more strongly into the result and at the same time tries to avoid all errors. This balancing act makes dealing with mass customization both exciting and challenging. In the end, you are rewarded with a massive result. That's what happened to us at open121 when we were designing this issue. Because the quantitative dimension of the result is literally unmanageable for creative minds.
 
The Modular System from HP
All 4250 covers are based on just eight layers in which the design constantly changes and the colors change. This randomization is made possible by HP SmartStream Designer software - an interface between graphics and printing that eliminates the need for thousands of files and printing processes. Everything that is printed is created in a single pass, as the printing press only generates the covers fully automatically from the specifications immediately before printing.
 
This is how we created the unique world of MIWAU - an individual and unconventional mix of dog and cat. We also personalized each cover with the recipient's first name. This captures the spirit of the times and opens up a huge spectrum of possibilities, which nevertheless all follow a uniform and harmonized aesthetic. The increasing individualization of lifestyles and products is taken up and questioned in the design. You may have just this one cover, but it's only one of 4250 different ones!
 
A new Era
Thanks to HP and countless hours of conceptualization, everyone can now look at their own cover and see something unique. All cover illustrations are anchored in the same intense aesthetic. Personalization gives the random motif an individual touch. The cover is not directly adapted to customer wishes, but it opens all doors to individualization and chance. This broadens the graphic horizon and also the playing field for unusual products.
 
In an era of mass customization, stories about brands can now be told and embellished in a completely new way. Projects like this offer the opportunity to learn more and more about the unknown, to develop new methods and to think outside the digital and design box!
But Muller Martini's technology also played a key role in the project. The cover and contents were brought together on an Acoro perfect binder from Muller Martini at Print Alliance in Bad Vosläu, Austria, and then dispatched.

Yours,
Knud Wassermann,
Editor-in-Chief "Graphische Revue"